Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Good Night/Bad Night

It started off pretty well.  Liz, Johnny and I went out and we had a few drinks.  We played a few rounds of “Lying to Strangers in Bars,” a game invented by Liz.  The basic premise is that we’ll strike up a conversation with someone at the bar, and then one of us will tell another “Hey, tell them about…” followed by a vague reference to an improbable and untrue event.  The third person is in charge of scoring the resulting story, on a wide range of category, including how funny it is, how much the stranger seems to believe it, and, as a result of a long-running joke, how many times the story teller can work in the word scoundrel.

The winner last night was, by far, Johnny, who worked off Liz’s prompt, “Hey, tell him about the time we stumbled on that nude druidic ritual up in the Adirondacks.”   All in all, it should have been a good night.

Then, at the third bar, everything suddenly seemed terrible. The drinks, the music playing, the company of my friends- it all at once disgusted and infuriated me. That’s the kind of mood where I could say something hurtful, but thankfully I still had enough self awareness to recognize that. I made some excuse about needing fresh air and wandered out into the cold.

After a  while Liz and Johnny came out to check on me. Like I said, better than I deserve.  I told them I was just feeling a little sick from the beer- no need to ruin their night with my shit. A little while, when I was feeling better, I went back inside, but I was pretty subdued the rest of the night, I guess.

No dogs tonight, at least.  The weirdest thing that happened, my own hang-ups aside, was some guy at the second bar staring at me and lapping beer out of his pint glass with his tongue.  Liz is pretty sure he was flirting with me, which is flattering, I guess?

Monday, February 17, 2014

Sometimes Life’s REALLY Fucking Weird

So I talked to my neighbor.  The conversation, paraphrased from memory, went something like this.
“Hi. I think your dog got out the other night. He was on my back porch.”
“You saw Tito?  Was he okay?”
“I guess?  I just saw him for a second out my window.”
“Listen, if you see him again, call us, any time.  He’s been missing for more than a week now.”
“What?  No, I’m sorry.  I meant your new dog.  The bigger one.”
“We don’t have another dog.” We both gave each other Am-I-In-A-Room-With-A-Crazy-Person looks, and then I apologized for my mistake and left.  The black dog had been in the yard when I arrived, but was nowhere to be seen when I left.

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m cracking up.  I’m going to go out with my friends tonight and just try to relax and have a good time.

Sometimes Life’s Pretty Weird Too

                So I went out the back door this morning, and on a whim, I glanced at the outside of my bedroom window. I was more than a little freaked out when I saw what looked an awful lot like claw marks on the frame. Maybe the neighbor’s new dog got out Friday night.  I’ll have to talk to them when I get home.

                On a related subject, it seemed like there was one of the big black mastiffs (?) on every corner on my way to class today. I noticed something else odd too.  They’ve all got what looks like the same little white patch above their left eye.  Maybe I’m not just starting to notice them now. Maybe some travelling watchdog salesman came through town with a litter of dogs.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Bad Dreams

                I woke up- or I thought I woke up- last night to a scratching at the window. When I glanced up, there was a large black shape at the window. I thought it was a dog, but it was dark enough that I couldn’t really be sure.  I tried to sit up, but I found that my body wouldn’t obey me.  I could do little more than jerk my arms and legs about spasmodically.  Eventually, I worked my way out of bed and fell on the floor. I don’t know how long I lay there, trying to bring my limbs back under my control, but eventually I found myself sitting up in bed, tangled up in my sheets, listening to the blare of my alarm clock.

                I guess that’s what I get for watching a documentary on sleep hypnosis right before bed.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Sometimes the Mind’s Pretty Weird

                On my way to and from college today, I saw three or four other black dogs, of the same sort as my neighbors’.  I can’t ever remember seeing that breed before, but now that seeing the one in the neighbors’ yard has got me thinking about them, they seem to be everywhere.
                This is a pretty common phenomenon. The human brain is the result of millions of years of evolution, but the point is, evolution doesn’t work according to blueprints. Things happen, more or less at random, and the things that work a little better stick around. There are tons of inefficiencies and idiosyncrasies in the human mind that stick around because they aren’t serious enough, in enough of the population, to die out.

                Which leads to the main problem.  If the mind is the tool we have for interpreting the world, and the mind itself is flawed, than how are we supposed to figure out what’s wrong with it? And my mind is, not to brag, perhaps slightly more flawed than most.  I have to wonder if I’m wasting my time, trying to examine a flawed instrument with a flawed instrument.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Where Do I Go From Here?

                So, I started this blog to talk about my personal problems, but the truth is, I’m not sure where to go next.  There’s not a lot more to say than I covered in the initial post. I don’t know where the feelings (I like the term Beast more, but that’s probably just my machismo talking again) come from.  I had normal, loving parents.  Some things they’ve said, I get the impression that there’s a history of mental illness farther along the family tree, but I haven’t pressed them to explain it directly.  That would start a conversation I’m not quite ready to have.
                In semi-unrelated news, the neighbors have a new dog. A big black one, I’m not sure of the breed, but maybe a mastiff of some sort? If I had to guess, I’d say it was a watch dog. It definitely kept its eye on me from the moment I opened the door, and even though it didn’t bark or show its teeth or move from its prone position in the shade of the elm tree, you could just tell that it wasn’t the sort of animal you wanted to screw with.

                No sign of the yapbag. Maybe the new dog ate it.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Why Wolves, Though?

                Yeah, I know, people talk about werecats and weresharks and werebuffalo and werelizards and all whatnot, but at least in Western culture, it seems to keep coming back to wolves.  Why might that be?
                I think it’s got to do with dogs. See, it’s hard to relate to imagine going from being a human to being a shark or a lizard. There’s just no context for it. Too wide a gap. A shark is a shark is a near-mindless eating machine. But dogs- we live with dogs, we love them, we treat them as part of the family. And at the same time, we’re aware that there’s only the briefest of steps between our beloved companions and wolves.

                I’m not much of a dog person, myself.  They just make a good metaphor. I don’t have anything against the species in general, but there’s a little rat-dog in the yard across the street from my building who delights in yapping his head off all night, and that’s kind of colored my perception.